


Roses and Copper

by glittergritted



Series: Ashla [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Rise of Empire Era - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Implied Relationships, Murder, No Sex, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-06
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-03-29 08:27:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3889432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glittergritted/pseuds/glittergritted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>- 40 BBY -</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Red, Part One

**Author's Note:**

> This is an alternate take on the universe of Star Wars, based primarily on the pre-Disney Expanded Universe. This AU is centered around a reimagining of the Chosen One, who is entirely of my own creation. The "Ashla 'Verse," as I refer to it, will include major changes from canon that some may consider to be controversial. All the same, I hope you enjoy it.

“You should be asleep.”  
  
The girl jumped with a silent gasp. The surprise on her face melted into a smile. “So should you,” countered a small voice, wiser and older than its host's ten years.  
  
Jemmila Seeker pivoted on a bench connected to the white balcony's solid railing, backlit by the pallid moonlight. “ _I_ don't have a ride I'm to attend early-morning,” she said, folding skinny arms over her ribs. She was elegantly tall, with not a single hint of lank, and wore a mess of black hair over one shoulder in a disheveled braid, a few stray strands too short to be corralled hanging about her ears. When put-together in all her regal splendor—hair braided and twisted out of her face and spilling in cascades of dark waves down her shoulders, eyes lined, lips colored, and clad in strikingly achromatic formal robes, with her best smile of Seeker charm as her focal accessory—Jemmila truly looked the part of the queen-to-be she was. But now, in featureless white cloth sleepclothes and exhibiting a faint darkness under her eyes, she looked like a teenager with a dire urge to harvest the red bark from the distant hydenock tree beside the lake she had been staring at. She considered boiling the bark to make dye, which she could then thicken and make into paint. The color would be a bold red, just vibrant enough to add proper zest to a Dantooinian sunset.  
  
Not a single royal thought was on her mind under the friendly canopy of stars above.  
  
“Saul wouldn't be happy if you slept through it,” Jemmila continued. “Neither would your friends.”  
  
“I know,” Rosalie said, walking out onto the balcony to sit beside her sister. In the moonlight, her silver-white hair gleamed angelically, pushed behind her shoulders to spill in thick, loose waves down her back. Jemmila took a moment to call to immediate thought the reason their parents had fabricated for Rosalie not inheriting the richly dark pigments of their own hair, as if forgetting it for a single moment in her sleepiness would cause her to slip: _Your grandmother—your father's mother—is Near-Human, and she has white hair just like yours_. Only what species's blood made Marich Seeker's mother Near-Human was never specified. And, above all, their grandmother was one hundred percent Human all-around.  
  
Conveniently, Rosalie had never met her paternal grandmother.  
  
Renewed guilt sank into Jemmila's chest, and she swallowed on a dry throat. _When was the last time I drank anything?_ “So why are you up, firefly?” She watched as Rosalie's eyes scanned the large lake overlooked by the Royal Palace. “Bad dream?” She reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her sister's ear.  
  
Rosalie shook her head. “Not a bad one, just . . .” She couldn't seem to find the right word, so she instead looked up from the lake and asked, “Do you ever want to leave home?”  
  
The question took Jemmila by surprise, and she smiled. “Home as in Aldera or home as in Alderaan?”  
  
“Alderaan.”  
  
She thought, pulling the long sleeves of her sleepshirt down over her slender hands. “Sometimes. The University of Coruscant has an art program that I'd like to attend someday, if that's what you mean.”  
  
“I mean _anything_ ,” Rosalie replied, adjusting in her seat to better face the older Seeker beside her. “Just . . . anywhere but Alderaan.”  
  
“Just anywhere,” Jemmila repeated, incredulous. Rosalie nodded. “Sure, I _want_ to. Of course. Exploring other worlds would be wonderful, but other than school on Coruscant I don't think my options are very open.”  
  
She was right. Their brother Saul was Jemmila's twin, and so it came down to which one came from the womb first in determining who would be heir to Alderaan's hereditary monarchy, a position held by Ta'Shis for nine generations. Such twin was Jemmila, and so she was placed in line to be Queen after Tura, their mother, either abdicated or died. Due to this, opportunities for planet-hopping and leisure trips were slim to none, even now.  
  
“But if you _could_ go anywhere, where would you go? Other than Coruscant.”  
  
Jemmila clicked her tongue, furrowing her brow at the query. “Why do you want to know? What's made you so curious about my hypothetical offworld endeavors that you had to get out of bed to ask me about them?”  
  
Rosalie chuckled and went silent for a moment, eyes drifting down to Jemmila's ringed index finger, which played at her shirt's hem. “I want to leave.”  
  
The heir couldn't say she was exactly perplexed by the statement. She'd seen a look of distance in Rosalie's eyes more than once, as though she never ceased imagining life elsewhere. Instead of questioning her desire to leave Alderaan—she was a child; children felt desire to move about constantly—Jemmila smiled. “Well, where do you want to go?”  
  
Rosalie leaned against the stark white railing, looking down at the shore of the lake. A woolly moth flapped its giant wings and made ripples of the moon reflected in the water. “Maybe Naboo. Or Mandalore. We learned about those worlds during lessons yesterday.”  
  
“Isn't Mandalore a bit dangerous? At least for someone as tiny as you?” Jemmila poked Rosalie's arm in jest, and they laughed together. Rosalie was tall for her age, but as thin as a rail and hardly had any useful meat on her bones. “I recommend Naboo; they're not too different from us.”  
  
“That's why I want to go somewhere dangerous,” Rosalie pressed, meeting Jemmila's bright cobalt eyes again. “Alderaan isn't dangerous at all. It's not exciting.”  
  
“Oh, Alderaan is plenty exciting. It's just a matter of where you go. You could climb the mountains, traverse the forests, ride Yessa to the old Killik hives in the Castle Lands.”  
  
“But everyone's done that,” Rosalie said softly, her voice losing all potential for combativeness in the midst of her tire. She rested her cheek on her cream-clad arm, still watching the woolly moth. “I want to do something no one's already done.”  
  
Jemmila sat silent for a moment and looked at her warmly. “Is that so?”  
  
Rosalie nodded, silent.  
  
Jemmila nodded, too, contemplative. It was little wonder Rosalie wanted to make her mark on the galaxy—it was in her blood. Not the blood given by her mother, but that given by her father. It could be argued that the Force was Rosalie's father in name only, but she was destined for a life in the stars rather than one cooped in in a politician's robes. About that, Jemmila was certain.  
  
Again, the lie clawed at her. Feeble, halfhearted swipes at her rib cage, but palpable all the same. Their parents were right: By all accounts, it was safer for her to live this way. Their deception was well-intended, but deception nonetheless. Jemmila and Saul had had several talks about their consensus on the matter: She should know. There was no question or concern of it being worth telling at this point, so deep in the web that was supposed to shield her. It was only a matter of the right moment, and finding the resolve within themselves to act on that moment once they found it.  
  
She would find out someday. It was inevitable. When that would be and from whom, Jemmila was hard-pressed to leave up to fate.  
  
“I know you will someday,” Jemmila said, meaning it, running her index finger and thumb down a column of silver-white hair. It seemed to soothe the girl, her eyes closing halfway. “There's plenty of time for that yet.”  
  
“I'm tired of waiting.” The four words were spoken in a tone just above a whisper. Violet irises disappeared behind heavy ivory lids, and the child's even breathing grew slightly more audible.  
  
“You seem tired on all accounts, firefly.”  
  
Standing up, Jemmila hooked one arm under the crooks of Rosalie's knees and wrapped the other around her shoulder blades, lifting her with ease and promptly carrying her inside, out of the chilly night. The girls' shared bedroom was one floor above the balcony, with a large glass window that had an incredible view of the family's personal gardens and orchards. Delicate aromas and soft rustling from creatures and wind alike gave off an altogether harmonious atmosphere. There were a couple of families of orokeets many stories below, living in the trees closest to the bedroom, whose early-morning chirping ofttimes served as a wake-up call for the girls when the window was left open.  
  
As Jemmila lowered Rosalie into her bed, the closest of the two to the window, a soft evening breeze brushed stray midnight tresses against the artist's cheek. After tucking Rosalie in, she made quick work of closing the window, nodding a silent goodnight to the orokeets. She pulled the tie from her hair and stretched it around her right wrist, shimmying her fingers through the weaving of her braid to set the strands free.  
  
On the windowsill lay Jemmila's datapad, still open to an application to the University of Coruscant. Clicking off the device's backlight, she watched as the blank form faded to black. She had already filled in the criteria a few times before, but that had been in fantasy. As of now, just as she had told Rosalie, she had too many commitments on Alderaan to be serious about moving elsewhere.  
  
She watched the lake outside for a few moments, twisting her orchid sierocline ring. The flecks of maroon and cerise in the deep blue gemstone caught the moonlight, and the ring's songsteel band glimmered as Jemmila turned it. With a quiet sigh, the princess was off to the soft white sheets of her bed, lying on her side and facing the window. The darkness of the room only allowed her to see so much of Rosalie, but she got as good a look as she could to assure that all was well before allowing herself to drift off.

* * *

Crisp midnight air bit at the young man's exposed neck and face, but he refrained from shrugging his collar further up his skin in order to maintain a stony posture. Sharp, slanted mountainscapes loomed as stark silhouettes against a dark indigo sky littered with a thousand thousand stars, washed out of sight in the fuzzy outline of light around the crescent moon directly overhead. In the early spring air was the distinct smell of pine, and slate gray eyes—the color of a sky unsure of the forthcoming of its own rain, caught between states of clear and overcast—flickered in the direction of a forest of tall, pointed trees beyond the Aldera city boundaries. He had heard something rustling among the vegetation a few yards away from him. _Probably just a stray animal._  
  
Still, Mykal's nerves were fraying more and more with each moment spent lurking outside of the Royal Palace. Per trust of Alderaan's general lack of animosity, there were no security guards watching the perimeter of the palace, though he continuously looked around in case some should pop out of the darkness as though shielded by cloaking devices. “Are you about done observing?” Mykal asked his company, his voice inadvertently sharpening to a snap, influenced by the cold air shortening his breath.  
  
The older of the pair didn't seem to outwardly mind the tone, but within him stirred a brief spite toward the question posed. He stood an even four inches taller than his apprentice, but seemed to tower above even his own true height in the shadows cast by the moonlight that glinted off of the palace structure. Rather than reprimand, he settled with a firm, wordless glare as his core cooled.  
  
Mykal nodded a single time with renewed diffidence, swallowing as his eyes turned back to the pearlescent building that centered the city. Its off-white exterior was accented with pale silvers and grays. Truly a grand place to call home, endless space within the myriad towers, chambers, and corridors, likely just as dazzlingly pristine as the outside. Mykal would have liked to imagine the family's personal wing as a lived-in mess of washing and children's toys, but the impression he'd gotten from Alderaan thus far had been that every square inch of it was both clean and perfect enough to lick in the middle of a crowd and come away in robust health. Simply because that was the planet's nature.  
  
Like a diamond, made up of a million fractal prisms within air-clear crystal. Beautiful and pure.  
  
No place for a Dark Jedi.  
  
Uneasiness settled deep in the Corellian's stomach as the silence drew on endlessly, the Force growing thick with his own disconcertion blended with his master's ominous, vague air of _knowledge_. The effect was altogether suffocating, and a deep inhale of a chilly breeze cut through his unaccustomed nostrils, softly ruffling his hair as it passed through. Mykal gave himself a moment to get used to it, took another breath, and squared his shoulders under the red-dyed Tomuon wool of his robes, steeling himself against his own question. “What's the procedure?”  
  
Turning a black cloak over in large, scarred hands, Mykal's master didn't bother with a proper answer. “ _I'll_ worry about that.” This worried Mykal considerably, and Enric could feel the tightening of his sense in the Force. The latter responded with a chuckle as he clipped the bronzium clasp of the cloak at the center of his collarbones. “I said not to worry, my apprentice,” he purred, voice nearly indecipherable under the weight of his accent and the distracting sounds of wind-rustled foliage. With another snowy breeze came the aromas of freshly bloomed flowers from the gardens the pair stood before—a lush, natural bastion faithfully standing guard—and vanilla and cinnabar that seemed to waft out from other buildings around the area.  
  
The two men were stationed at the palace's side, where the royal family's personal wing was located, out of view of the main streets and beside the western entrance to the foremost garden. From there, Enric would be able to make his way to the back entrance that the family typically used, thanks to blueprints hacked by the man standing anxiously at his side. Not difficult to obtain, but still an accomplishment worthy of praise. The Dark Jedi trained his pale eyes on an upper room just above a balcony, extending his senses with the Force to better detect the life signature of his target. In his experience, children always favored upper floors.  
  
“If anyone comes out of the gardens other than myself,” Enric was saying, Mykal only snapping back into the conversation quarter of the way through the sentence, “use this.” Unexpectedly, he handed his apprentice a weapon. Accepting it with both hands, Mykal saw that it was a blaster pistol—a CDEF, to be exact. Small, lightweight, and cheap gunnery, Mykal had trained with them briefly—for self-defense when he was an adolescent—and had decent knowledge of the model. Its accuracy was low and its damage the same, but he had always supposed that they would have to be useful in _some_ situation.  
  
Instinctively, used to the feeling of the pistol, Mykal wrapped his right hand around the grip and checked the setting. It hadn't even occurred to him to ask what he was expected to use it for. By now, he was used to the tediously vague answers Enric gave him, hardly asking any questions nowadays and trusting that at least a _moderately_ satisfactory result would come of whatever scheme he had concocted. It had been three years since the Naidaarian had taken Mykal under his wing in the latter's search of fulfillment. Somewhere along the way, Mykal had become tangled in Enric's quest for . . . hell if he knew what.  
  
He had known once, and perhaps still did in the back of his mind and would again, but Mykal's thoughts had been so cluttered with aiding his master's mission to Alderaan that he had even begun to resume the relentlessly pliable demeanor—one may be inclined to call it weak—he had exhibited in the early stages of his apprenticeship. Inwardly, Mykal snorted bitterly. Blast it if he wasn't a fool for following so blindly—the followed being his mentor or not—but what further misfortune could fall upon the two of them save for a bounty? Enric was good at keeping those things away. Both men wanted power and presence, fortification and control. In siding with such an influential man as Enric Kelrian, such things seemed impossibly easy to obtain.  
  
The dark side of the Force was a deep, dark sea under a treacherous bridge. Mykal crouched upon on that bridge, gripping its sides for balance. Enric swam in that sea already, fighting to drag Mykal down with him into what he called “true power.” Despite being the eldest of three Zeras children, Mykal had a weak stomach for violence and domination. Enric sought to thicken his resolve long ago, but to little avail. He knew that a gentle heart beat in his apprentice's chest, but a selfish one, too. That, in itself, put him an inch closer to the edge of the bridge.  
  
_Force be good_ , Mykal thought, exasperated, inwardly sighing as he let the pistol fall to his side in his hand, _straighten your backbone_. He decided that it was nerves caused by the night making him this way, and not a subconscious reversion to his erstwhile trope of the dutiful, ignorant acolyte; he had never been fond of darkness at any point in his life, nor what lurked within it. Mykal briefly probed the area for any immediate threats, both with his eyes and what thin wisps of the Force were available to him.  
  
All of the threat he could sense was that which stood directly at his side, and it chilled his spine with a sharp shiver that he worked hard to suppress. “Use this for what?” he asked at length, bringing the blaster up to abdomen height to display the object in question.  
  
Wordlessly, Enric reached over and set the blaster from STUN to LETHAL. “Stop them. This is the only exit they would take; closest to the outside world.”  
  
Searing worry crept up with slender fingers around Mykal's sternum, and he had to tighten his grip on the blaster to assure that he hadn't dropped it in his brief daze at the other man's words. He was about to ask things like how and why he should be stopping the inhabitants of the palace, but stopped himself. He looked down at the CDEF again, the sight of its LETHAL setting making his hands tremble.  
  
Contrary to Mykal's long-standing belief, perhaps Enric had high expectations of him—or he was making some uncharacteristic attempt at stroking the brunet's ego. Either way, Mykal's hand was ice-cold around the pistol's grip, and the deepest center of his chest could be likened to frosted durasteel.  
  
He shut his eyes against the sound of smooth cobblestone underneath Enric's matte boots. After the footfalls were out of earshot, he opened his eyes and took several steps forward. Mykal leaned on a the skinny trunk of a flowering tree, drawing in a breath of air that smelled thickly of t'iil flowers. He pressed his left hand to his forehead, gritting his teeth together so hard they threatened to crack. He had time in-between the pounds in his head to wonder what source of power killing a royal family could possibly be if the killer didn't plan to usurp—and how such a notion as this had found its way into Enric's mind to begin with. There would surely be children involved, as all who knew of House Ta'Shi consequently knew of its heir apparent and her siblings.  
  
Mykal had known his master to be an apathetic man, bitingly vacant of any feeling save power-hunger and anger, and the occasional sprig of pride. He had seen the Dark Jedi kill numerous people, cleaning their blood from his knives and deactivating his deadly lightsaber with such nonchalance that one would think murder a daily chore that he was forced to labor through. Despite all of that, the murder of children had simply never occurred to Mykal as a possibility. Now that it had, he found himself wondering why it left him so nonplussed.

* * *

Rosalie Seeker had always been a light sleeper, and so the clicks of the bedroom door opening and closing roused her easily. Waking her the rest of the way were heavy, booted footfalls making their way closer to the beds. Groggy, she registered the sound of durasteel-toe boots making their steady, surefooted way across the painted floor as familiar. Saul wore durasteel-toe boots when he tended to his horses. Rosalie made no question of why he hadn't already taken them off and cleaned them.  
  
As Rosalie gradually grew more aware of her surroundings, she knew it wasn't him. She could feel the unfamiliar presence right beside her, looming over her like a mountain. Suddenly she was cold all over, limbs frozen in place, eyes wide open as the man spoke to her.  
  
“I can't have you getting in my way, now can I?”  
  
Rosalie started to scream, but all that came out was a choked cry, muffled by his large hand clasped over her mouth. The force of his grasp pushed her down and hurt her neck.  
  
A passive expression washed over Enric's face, shadowed by the cowl of his cloak, as he met her eyes. Big, watery, and a striking shade of purple-blue. She was just as he had foreseen, with argent hues of snow and ash strewn about her head, tangling as she struggled against his grip. With his free hand, he took a pre-prepared hypo-syringe, loaded with a hefty dose of moreauwood extract, from his utility belt. Bright pink succulents, moreauwood plants were native only to Lemmi VI of the Hapes Cluster, and their extract was illegal in the hands of those without medical licenses. A strong yet temporary paralytic with the correct dosage, but potentially deadly when too much was administered. It was hard to guess how much would be adequate for a child, so Enric decided in the moment to make an educated guess.  
  
He couldn't manage to connect the needle to the girl's arm at first; she was a strong one, unexpectedly so, and fast. He wouldn't have told this from how generally small she appeared in the wan moonlight, but she fought him valiantly enough.  
  
She was easily overpowered: Enric moved his hand from her mouth to her head, gripping a handful of silver and dragging her out of her bed and onto the floor beside it, scuffing the white paint with his boot.  
  
Now Rosalie could scream, and she did. A shrill sound to Enric's ears, but little matter. By the time it woke Jemmila with a start, the intruder had already pinned Rosalie on her side with a knee digging into her lower rib cage. He held her left arm held taut across his abdomen and injected half of the syringe's contents into her bloodstream. The needle left a tiny drop of blood in its wake.  
  
Jemmila leapt out of bed, clutching onto the flesh of Enric's neck and fabric of his cloak in an effort to pull him away. He stood and pivoted, thrusting his hand outward and pushing Jemmila back onto her bed with the Force. The effect of the moreauwood had already began showing in the girl who lay beneath him: paralysis of the vocal chords silenced any further shouting, and the girl's limbs lay limp and useless around her.  
  
The Force was fiery with panic and fear, sparking brilliantly with urgency and the heat of malicious satisfaction.  
  
The princess rebounded quickly, standing up again and digging her nails into his neck. Jemmila was tall and strong, surprisingly so regarding the latter. But Enric was taller and stronger, and had more weapons at his disposal. Blocking a strike from the girl, a firm punch to her jaw caused her to stumble back, clutching her face and tripping slightly when the backs of her legs hit her bed. The half-used hypo-syringe having clattered to the floor in the brief scuffle, Enric resorted to unsheathing the bladed weapon hanging at his left side. He had planned to use it, anyway, and had long decided that a victory fought for was better than one against a defenseless adversary. He brought forth the gleaming blade, and watched with passive malice as Jemmila braced her fall with an outstretched arm before bouncing back to attack him again.  
  
She was met with a firm stab to her abdomen, the cry she was about to emit silenced by the deep embedding of tempered steel through fat and muscle. Her face was frozen in pain, lips parted and fearful blue eyes staring up at those pale and calculating, attached to the assassin looming over her. Enric extracted the dagger and shoved Jemmila back onto her bed, giving her no chance to recuperate. Blood spattered against his clothes with the swift extraction, and again with a more forceful stab to her solar plexus. He clamped his free hand over her shoulder to hold her down.  
  
Strengthened by the Force, the stabs were strong and sure, crushing her sternum and piercing her left lung. The razor-sharp blade scraped against bone several times.  
  
A vicious slit to her throat silenced her agonized shouts, nothing but tedious and irritating to his ears.  
  
The girl was brave, and for that Enric commended her. He thought it fitting to commend such bravery with an equally gruesome death.  
  
He relished in the tearing of the princess's flesh as his blade dragged down her torso, and smirked at the warmth of her blood on his hands and shaven cheek. He bore his teeth slightly in concentration, Jemmila still trying to scratch and claw and push him away. The choked, gurgling cries emitted from Jemmila's mouth accompanied her hands, rife with defensive cuts, going limp beside her hips, fingers uncurling and palms going flat. Striking, beautiful cobalt eyes were closed by bloody fingers, leaving red splotches on either lid. She was a beautiful girl even in death, relaxation coming to the muscles previously taut with fear and adrenalin, raven black hair splayed out in a pool of red as though she were floating in a red sea.  
  
Enric took a short moment to catch his breath, noticing only then that his hood had fallen. Pulling it back up with one hand, his eyes caught sight of a glimmer on Jemmila's hand. A ring with a large oval stone, mottled with blood. He reached out and slipped the piece from her finger, holding it up before him briefly before placing it in a small pouch on his belt.  
  
Standing upright, Enric wiped either side of the dagger on his pant leg and sheathed it. White-blue irises fell upon Rosalie, lying motionless on the floor, whimpering quietly and unevenly. A step closer, and he could see the dampness surrounding her eyes and the shuddering, shallow rise and fall of her chest.  
  
Swiping a drop of red from his lips with the back of his hand, Enric knelt beside the girl and lifted her gently to be propped against his knee. Her eyes were locked on Jemmila's legs, dangling motionlessly over the edge of the bed. The amount of blood that continued to pour from her gaping wounds was too much to be absorbed by the bedclothes, so it began to trickle in intermittent droplets onto the floor. Bile rose in Rosalie's throat, but any physical reaction to the sight of her sister's corpse was thwarted by gentle yet firm fingers on her chin. Enric turned her face to his, a masterfully deceptive look of comfort painting his pale features. There was a quirk to his lips as though he were saying, _I'm really sorry about all of this._ But there was no deception needed. No any amount of it would serve in calming the terror that turned the child's blood to ice, that caused her heart to pound rapidly against her ribs. For a brief beat, the room was so quiet that she could hear her blood flowing in her ears past the ringing. Her vision blurred and started to blacken.  
  
“Shhh,” Enric cooed, brushing the cleanest spot of his thumb underneath either violet eye. The mock comfort twisted Rosalie's insides into knots and made her breath catch in her throat. “We're going to go see your mommy and daddy now, okay?”  
  
The fogginess lifted from Rosalie's head and her eyes popped open in alarm. The soothing tone to his voice was warm and mellifluous, but it chilled her to the bone. She wanted to kick and scream, but her muscles were utterly useless under the effects of the paralytic, unresponsive to her commands. In a smooth, swift motion, Enric lifted her into his arms with incredible ease. Rosalie's head rested upon his chest as though he were a parent carrying his child to bed. His heartbeat sounded slow and calm in her ear. His long-legged gait was smooth and even, as though this was as casual a stroll as he had ever taken.  
  
Rosalie's body wanted to shiver at the warm dampness of Enric's left hand upon her nape, but it couldn't. Acidity burned the back of Rosalie's mouth as they walked up the flight of stairs to her parents' room, from which they hadn't stirred when she was screaming. Her heart felt like it was slamming against her chest. Her mind raced. Surely the commotion had been heard _throughout the palace. Surely._  
  
The sight that met her eyes upon entering the bedroom gave her heart a sharp lurch: Tura Ta'Shi Seeker and Marich Seeker were bound beside each other on their bed, defensive wounds forming bloody slits in their sleeves. Their wrists tied to the headboard behind them, and there were cloth gags in their mouths. They saw their daughter cradled in the arms of the man who had so skillfully tied the knots that scraped their wrists raw as they struggled against them, and their muscles stiffened to a shocked stillness.  
  
Enric propped Rosalie against the wall to the bed's left, placing her directly adjacent to an armoire, as if to grant her the best view possible. Enric smiled as he walked around the bed, taking pride in the state of Alderaan's queen and senator. It had been a trial wrestling them both into submission, and such made it that much more rewarding to see them supine and defenseless. His blade was extracted again, coming away from the leather sheath stringy with remnants of drying blood.  
  
“I trust you both understand the necessity of this,” he said, as though reassurance as to a reason would give them any essence of understanding or forgiveness.  
  
With no further preliminaries, one hand gripped the fabric over Marich's shoulder, and the other plunged the sharp blade into his right lung. The scream emitted from the man would have been deafening had it not been for the gag. Rosalie's heart painfully wrenched in her chest again, and a small squeak of desperation—the only sound she could muster past the drugged static of her vocal chords—sounded from the back of her throat. _No! NO! Please! STOP! You're hurting him!_ She wanted desperately to get up and do something, anything. It didn't matter what.  
  
But all she could do was watch. Watch as forceful blows spattered blood in her general direction, some dotting the cloth of her pants and shirt, as well as the hands that lay uselessly on her lap. The urge to vomit at the warm sensation and coppery scent of Marich's blood was moot and fruitless, though potent and churning in her gut. More tears fell, but naught could be done to wipe them, and they mingled with the blood on her cheeks. She felt like she was suspended in a thick, gelatinous honey, unable to breathe.  
  
Marich bled out quickly, gasping his last breath past a deeply slit throat that splashed blood along Tura's cheek. She was next, and Enric, face still shadowed from view, walked coolly over to the other side of the bed. She was sobbing past the gag, falling in and out of consciousness with Jemmila's cries still echoing in her ears, as well as the silence that followed them. It was deafening, chilling.  
  
The dagger was warm and wet when either of her cheeks were slashed. Enric watched the blood drip from the cuts onto her chestnut curls and the pillow beneath her head. Tura's husband's and daughter's blood mingled with hers as she was punctured beneath her solar plexus, and again above and between both clavicles.  
  
Rosalie didn't catch all of it—most of her vision was in and out of focus, with blurry red spots in the air like sanguine rose petals caught by breezes of wind. The ringing in her ears was too loud to hear anything else, and her head was pounding. She felt sick, tired, and empty all at once. Desperate and pleading and helpless, still floating in honey that smelled of metal. All energy and hope drained from her as her labored breaths grew less shallow. There was minuscule comfort in not being able to see or hear, but a squirmy unease to the feeling of blood seeping through her clothes to touch her skin. It felt like a long time until a startling pressure leaned on her leg, bringing back her hearing and sight with dizzying quickness, as though someone had flipped a switch in her brain to the ON position.  
  
Enric tilted her chin up to look at him, his fingers warm and slick with blood. She could only see the contours of his face, the shadowed details that would come to haunt her memories. She could see the lines beside his mouth deepen with a soft smile. It seemed as though that was his default expression of manufactured pity.  
  
He patted her leg softly and leaned forward so that his mouth was beside her ear. “Someday, sweet girl, you'll understand. I promise,” he told her, the smoky sliminess of his voice creating a sensation of ice water trickling down Rosalie's neck.  
  
So close to him now, Rosalie would have been made ill by the sickly sweet aroma of blood hanging on him if she were able. Sobs were achingly choked back by the lack of muscle movement in her neck, and her eyes were heavy and painful.  
  
The moreauwood extract would only keep her paralyzed for a couple more hours, so Enric wrapped up operations by standing straight and casting a final look at what he left of Tura and Marich before moving to exit the bedroom, his movements swift and graceful.  
  
Inky blackness finally overtook Rosalie's vision, and she slipped into unconsciousness.


	2. Red, Part Two

The scuffle was brief. Enric's knife only met the boy's face in long, bloody lines this way and that. Superficial, nothing substantial enough to quell the lust for spilled blood that still boiled within his gut. The look in the stark navy eyes he fought against was determined and defensive, and his resilience was surprising.  
  
The single being whose presence Enric had failed to account for had been the one who put up the strongest fight.  
  
The lowest moment of the Dark Jedi's night came when his blade was knocked from his hand by a kick of the boy's booted foot, and he was knocked off balance and into a small table against a wall. The boy dashed away, and Enric struggled to stand again. His boots were slippery with blood yet to coagulate, and it took him a few seconds to regain his bearings, take hold of the dagger, and go in pursuit of the tall escapee.  
  
By the time he reached the entrance he had used, the door was wide open. He continued through the royal family's personal passage through the gardens and small orchards, stirring animals and insects as he brushed roughly past the foliage. Just as he had planned: the mouse would soon be in the trap, the last—unexpected—obstacle would be cleared, and Enric could return to his dwelling satisfied. He couldn't help but smirk as he made his way through the winding cobble path. There were quick footfalls ahead, and he fully expected Mykal to be standing over the last remaining Seeker, gun in hand.  
  
That was what he had expected.  
  
That was what he had planned for.  
  
But that was not what he received.  
  
What he received upon returning to Mykal's post was Mykal _lying_ on his post. He was holding the back of his head, blaster pistol at his side. Anger shot through Enric like a madness, alighting every nerve ending with flame. He scowled down at his apprentice, and the younger man didn't need to look up to know the full essence of the fear Enric wanted to instill in him.  
  
When the boy had come out sprinting, there was a collision, and Mykal was on the unfortunate end of it. The would-be fourth victim escaped with only a few cuts—albeit identifiable markings. It was no matter, Enric decided. His apprentice had failed, though a frantic, sliced-faced prince shouldn't prove difficult to find. He couldn't be too far.  
  
“Get up,” Kelrian growled, sheathing his dagger in his belt. “We only have so long until morning.”  
  
It was then that the scent hit Mykal over the head like a slab of brick: blood. The rosy, metallic scent of Human blood. Slowly, he rose to his knees and looked up at his master. Bile rose in the base of his throat and his rainy eyes widened. _By the ocean's hair_. “What have you _done_?” Mykal had known the plan, but he had not imagined the outcome looking like this. An icy shiver cast down his spinal cord and his wrists trembled, almost unable to keep his weight elevated off the stone.  
  
Enric smiled down at the Corellian, momentary rage at the failure he had anticipated from the start. “This, my apprentice,” he said, voice gravelly nearly to the point of guttural, “is only the first step.”  
  
It was then that the deepest, most complete sinking of regret pulled Mykal's stomach down to the ground beneath him.  
  
_This_ was his strive for power.  
  
_This_ was the man he had looked to for guidance to obtain it.  
  
_This_ was the night—the very moment—that his world collapsed into something grotesque and unrecognizable.  
  
Mykal Zeras had misguided himself into a prison from which he could never escape, and he could practically feel the weight of the dark side's cold shackles weighing him down.  
  
The look in the pale eyes above him told him, _This is your battle now, too. My goal is yours._ “You want power?” was the former half of Enric's final words to Mykal before setting off in search of the escaped Seeker. “Don't get so ill at a little blood—or else you'll be seeing quite a lot of your own.”  
  
As Enric moved off quickly, Mykal sank, palms coming to rest flat on cold stone. He was breathing heavily, the pounding in his head starting to take a toll. The Sith had a mantra: “Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall set me free.” Mykal did not adhere to the Sith Code, but he found more often than not that the words acted as a soothing balm on the sting of the truth.  
  
Mykal repeated the Sith Code over and over in his head until he convinced himself that it was true again, settling his turning stomach with a thinner version of the illusion that had once blanketed him.


	3. Red, Part Three

Rosalie stretched, her bare hand meeting the cold floor beside her. Her neck was stiff and her shoulders were sore. But she could move freely, her muscles sluggish and tingling, which led her to believe that the memories of muscles made of hardened permacrete were only a dream. A nightmare from which she woke up to the familiar scent of metal.  
  
_Metal._  
  
She looked at her hand in the darkness of the hallway and saw dark splotches against the light skin—blood. Not hers, but from someone else's body, someone else's wounds. Her chest heaved, her heart pounding so hard she feared it may seize. Her stomach sank as though tied to a cinder block. There was enough moonlight to see tiny dark spots on the green linen of her shirt. Her hand shook as it lifted to her face, feeling dried residue of tears and blood against her fingerpads.  
  
It wasn't a dream. The nightmare was real.  
  
She still sat slumped against her parents' armoire. She started to push herself off of the hard, cold wood when her eyes fell upon the bed. Her hand went limp and she fell against the furniture. She sat for a prolonged moment, stunned, tears blurring her view of the bodies.  
  
“No, no, _no_.”  
  
Rosalie forced herself to stand on stiff legs. She made it into the hallway before her knees buckled under her weight. She tried to push herself up and sprint down the hall to the refresher, but instead her stomach turned. She fell to her hands and knees and retched, with gasping breaths in-between that made her choke.  
  
A cat pawed at her side and she jumped, trembling like a fawn trapped outside in the cold. Peppercorn's large orange eyes leered curiously at Rosalie in the pre-dawn darkness of the wide hall. He brushed his silky black forehead against her arm in a failed attempt at comfort.  
  
Rosalie was able to shakily push herself up now, leaving the cat behind, and stumbled to the refresher, gripping walls for support. Her ears rang with screams, and the metallic silver sheen of the man's knife practically blinded her as the image found its way into her mind's eye.  
  
The bathtub was reached at length, and she stumbled at its side so her abdomen collided with the porcelain. She didn't seem to care, paying so much mind to the pain as holding a shaking hand to the area as she yanked on the hot water handle. Scalding water poured furiously from the tap, and steam rose as it splashed against the floor of the tub. Rosalie fumbled in fully clothed, plugging the drain and scrubbing her stained hands with a rough brush intended for cleaning. It burned, the course fibers scraping against her soft skin paired with the nearly unbearable heat of the water, but it was cleansing. She shut her eyes, hot tears stinging them. Soon there would be no trace of the blood left, and new skin— _clean_ skin—would be forced to grow in its place. Her knuckles bled where she brushed too hard.  
  
Peppercorn was mewing at the door, orange irises coming alive in the overhead light. Scalding water filled the tub up to just above Rosalie's legs—her sleeves and pants were completely soaked through, heavily and uncomfortably clinging to her skin. To silence the cat, angry and distraught, Rosalie turned off the water and hurled the cleaning brush at him. It struck the tiled floor beside him hard, but all he did was scurry out of the way a few feet, shaking his paws.  
  
Rosalie couldn't find the strength in her to move, so she lay against the side of the bathtub, steam coiling around her and hands falling limp in the water. The porcelain was cool against her cheek, soothing the bristle-inflicted scratches. The slinky black cat came up to the tub then, reaching up with his front paws to rest them atop the edge. He sniffed Rosalie's hairline and pushed his forehead against it. All he got in return was a dripping-wet finger numbly raised to brush against his chest, more so out of reflex than true mental presence in the moment.  
  
Peppercorn remained in Rosalie's presence as she started crying again, weeping into curled hands. She sat up with great effort, only to fall to one elbow in the hot water. It had lost some of its vigor now, but still stung her skin. It was tinted a very faint rusty red, but she didn't notice.

* * *

Everything smelled of sage and rosemary and candlewax, an aroma that made a small smile perk up the corners of Rosalie's lips as she stirred awake, finding herself in someone's arms. For a few seconds, she had no mind to think this morning different from any other.  
  
But then she had the realization that her family's personal wing of the Royal Palace smelled of wildflowers and honey and citrus, and the walls were opalescent blues, lavenders, whites, and golds—not the plain white she was seeing now. She also wasn't in her sodden pajamas anymore, but a blue linen shirt and white pants. Her hair was pulled back in a single braid, which draped over the arm of Jaiye Seeker.  
  
“Uncle Jaiye?” Rosalie croaked, squinting against the sunlight.  
  
He had anticipated having more time to prepare something to say. Jaiye himself was still shaken; he had been the one who found her asleep against the wall of the bathtub upon arriving at the Royal Palace. He had gone there to deliver breads from his bakery, just as he had every other morning since his brother took residency there with the queen.  
His gray-green eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled down at her, soft and gentle, brushing stray silver from her forehead. Marich had been Jaiye's older brother by seven years, and called their native Terrarium City home until he fell in love with the then-princess. Jaiye and their older sister Abra followed to Aldera shortly thereafter. The trio never favored putting great distances between them.  
  
Jaiye had been close with both of his nieces and his nephew, but he and Rosalie were kindred spirits. Such made it all the more painful to look upon her face now. “Good morning,” he said, his voice hoarse.  
  
Suddenly, Rosalie stiffened in his arms. Ice crept up the nape of her neck and her crown as she remembered. A medicinal smell hung thickly in the air about her face, and she saw a sheen of ointment over red patches on her knuckles and dorsals, and could feel the stickiness of the same solution on her cheeks.  
  
She didn't weep, or sob, or cry in any fashion. There was only a raw emptiness that cut through to her bones with a torturous, dull slowness. She made a small noise and winced at a twisting sensation about her stomach.  
  
Rosalie wanted to lay her head on Jaiye's shoulder after a couple of minutes of thoughtless, suffocating silence hanging in the softly colored living room—but she stopped herself, the position proving too familiar. The memories brought further hollow anguish, and Rosalie settled for a distant fixation of her vision on a moss painting beside the front door.

* * *

It took a long time for Rosalie's limbs to move again, and when they finally did she removed herself from her uncle's lap, his aid being needed only in slight. She doubted the feeling of instability would ever fade, as though she would never stand on steady feet again, or ride a horse without her legs fastened to the saddle with straps.  
  
_A horse._  
  
Yessa, her black filly with the waves in her mane and the striped hooves—whose presence she oddly craved in that moment.  
  
Rosalie considered Saul with a stinging sensation in her eyes as a mug of tea was placed on the short-set table in front of the couch by Hix, Jaiye's wife, who felt utterly useless and mostly hovered near the kitchen. Not only had a girl lost her parents and siblings, but that girl's uncle lost a brother. By the time Rosalie was proffered t'iil tea, Jaiye had seen himself out onto the back balcony.  
  
There was little doubt in Rosalie's mind that Saul, though she hadn't seen him, was dead, too. The pang that ensued in-between Rosalie's solar plexus and stomach carried on persistently for a long time, relentless. Her grief seemed to consume every inch of her, and she longed for the chance to see her mother smile again. Her vision blurred as her arms ached for the chance to hug Jemmila, and it was soon after that that tears began to well in her eyes. A drop fell and created a dark spot on her sleeve.  
  
Hix had taken silent station beside Rosalie in place of Jaiye, wringing her fingers and occasionally reminding Rosalie to drink. Attempts at supportive outreaches lacked every time, so silence fell over the warm living area. The midday sun shone brightly through the windows, giving ghostly beauty to the swirls of steam rising from the tea. Only a quarter of it was gone; Rosalie's sips were meager and taken intermittently over the course of a couple of hours.  
  
Soon, there was a knock at the front door: three firm taps that made Hix jump. She gave a brief, affectionate pet to Rosalie's braid before hurrying to the door. At that time, presumably given alarm by the knocking, Jaiye returned to the living room. Rosalie's brow furrowed at how bloodshot and tired his eyes looked.  
  
“Hello?” Hix asked when she opened the door, voice airy despite the tension still coiled around her. There had already been authorities here to conduct interviews with the adults and to give condolences, so Hix had her courteous  
  
Backlit by clear daytime light, a Twi'lek woman with light blue skin and brown eyes smiled, nodding her head in regard. “Good afternoon,” she said, her tone friendly as she folded her arms within either spacious brown sleeve of her robe. “I do hope I'm not interrupting anything.”  
  
“N-no, you're not at all,” Hix said with a shake of her head, brows furrowing as she rested a hand against the door frame. She tucked a strand of light brown hair behind her ear as she looked at the visitor more closely. She recognized the tan robes the Twi'lek wore, and the dignified disposition ubiquitous among the monastic Jedi Order. They seemed to carry a vengeance against all that was untactful.  
  
_A Jedi, here?_ Little did Hix have prejudice in her heart against Jedi—nor much of anything else save indifference, for that matter—but this one carried with her an air of unyielding formality that made Hix uncomfortable. “What can I help you with?” But she knew. Somehow, she and Jaiye both guessed her purpose before she so much as drew a breath to answer her.  
  
The Jedi was as calm as still water, looking at Hix as though she could read her every thought. “My name is Ara Valaila,” she started. “I am a member of the Jedi Order's Acquisition Division, and I have been dispatched by the Jedi Council after some . . . _information_ surfaced as to a Force-sensitive child having belonged to Queen Tura.”  
  
She knew. It was likely that a thousand million people knew by now; news traveled quickly in a galaxy full of people who would rather indulge in the tragedies and dramas of others than their own. “I was told that the child's next of kin lives here.” The words spoken by the Jedi were gentle and quiet, as though he was dancing around the fragile feelings that a nerf calf would have been able to pick up.  
  
“My husband,” Hix answered in affirmative, nodding once. Her bangs fell over her left eye, and she pushed them back as she half-turned to face the aforementioned, whom she had heard reenter the room. “Jaiye.” A quick glance at Rosalie showed her violaceous irises gently focused on the exchange.  
  
Running a hand through disheveled black tresses, Jaiye stepped forward and gave a nod. “I'm—I was her brother-in-law. The queen's, I mean.” His face was covered by a stony, masculine attempt at appearing put-together. Valaila could see through his resolve as though it were crafted of glass.  
  
“I am very sorry,” she said, meaning it. “I know this is a difficult time, especially so soon—”  
  
“Isn't she too old to take?” Hix asked, genuinely curious in her gentle tone. Jaiye stiffened at her side, as though he had been struck over the head with the idea of betraying his brother's wishes to keep Rosalie out of the Jedi Order.  
  
“How old _is_ she?”  
  
“She turned ten a few months ago.”  
  
Ara's brow furrowed. It perplexed the Knight how a child with such powerful presence in the Force that she could feel it from beyond the home's stoop could have been hidden in the Core Worlds—directly under the Order's nose—for a _decade_. Surely Grand Master Yoda, of all of them, must have known, had some sense of such a powerful presence. Or perhaps the Queen of Alderaan should be praised for her exceeding skill in hiding places.  
  
“I see,” said the Jedi, dark citrine eyes casting a thoughtful glance to the stone beneath her boots. She met the pale greens of Jaiye then, her expression gentle. There was a certain stir in the Force that told Ara not to let the matter of advanced age turn her away. “I'd still like to talk with the girl, if that's all right with you.”  
  
Jaiye hesitated, stance shifting. “She may not . . . do very much talking.” Jaiye's eyes cast downward. Despite this, he silently agreed to the Jedi's request and stepped aside, granting her room to pass the threshold. “Come in,” he added, his voice nearly a whisper.  
  
Ara could sense an immense measure of sorrow and tension upon entering the cozy living room, far more than what she could feel in Jaiye and Hix themselves. She blinked, taken aback by the heaviness of the emotion in the Force akin to soaked wool. When her eyes fell upon the silver-haired girl on the couch, tea in hand and childlike curiosity backlighting her gaze up at her, she immediately knew why she had sensed her in the Force so strongly.  
  
The silver-white hair and violet eyes could have been attributed to near-Human descent if those were the lone factors one were to judge her by, but what that the Knight sensed in her was a different matter entirely. Faltering only slightly, Ara smiled, stopping a couple of feet from her and kneeling. The girl's expression remained the same all throughout.  
  
“What is your name?” Ara asked.  
  
Rosalie swallowed thickly, the responsibility of answering a question catching her off-guard. Her heartbeat was in her throat, but she miraculously managed a sip of tea before saying, “Rosalie.” She hadn't heard her own voice in a long time, and it sounded strange; it sounded different than it used to. Older. She _felt_ older, too. Not by a lot, but significantly enough to notice.  
  
The Jedi nodded, giving a stroke of her thumb to the rightmost side of her chin. She took a Hush-98 comlink from her belt, holding it low as to not overwhelm Rosalie. “My name is Ara. Would you mind if I took a small sample of your blood, Rosalie?” That made her stiffen. Ara held up her hands lowly and gave a reassuring tone to her voice. “Just a tiny prick on your finger, that is all I would need.”  
  
Rosalie considered, and as she did so her left forearm began to hurt, bruised from the hypo-syringe. Wordlessly, unquestioning of her motives, she offered the opposite hand. She knew this Ara was nice; she could tell he wouldn't hurt her. There was a look in her eyes, a certain posture in how she knelt before her. There was a friendly, motherly essence to her smile that influenced trust. The motion of Rosalie's arm extending was stiff and shaky.  
  
With the blood sample taken, Ara nodded in thanks as Hix wrapped Rosalie's finger in a small piece of cloth. The bleeding wasn't severe enough for bandaging, but it was at the girl's request—more aptly, a small nod in answer to, "Do you want a bandage, Rosalie?"  
  
Ara moved to a far corner of the room, staying near the door, feeling as though going further inboard to the home would be a kind of invasion. Besides, there was notable discomfort in Jaiye as it was. Ara proceeded to produce a portable data reader from her utility belt, transferring the blood sample data. The results lit up the screen a few moments later, and the Knight's chest did a flip.  
  
_Over twenty-one thousand per cell._  
  
That was all of the convincing she needed.  
  
All Jedi knew of the prophecy, of the tellings that in the galaxy's time of greatest need, a single Jedi, stronger than any other, would defeat the Sith and bring balance to the Force. Ara had heard it many times over. She had known that the One would be born of no father, have silver hair and violet eyes as markers of their identity as the Force's blood, and be stronger in the Force than any Jedi—past, present, and future. It was simply a matter of not believing it to be entirely true. Ara maintained a healthy amount of skepticism, and seldom indulged all-consuming belief in prophecies. Most of her disbelief was caused by her opinion that “the galaxy's darkest time already passed with the Great Sith War.”  
  
But the proof was directly in front of her now, in black and white. It couldn't be plainer. Her eyes flickered to Jaiye and Hix, and she walked over to the pair with an easy gait. The conversation that followed was long and difficult, with frequent motions to Rosalie and the results of her blood test. It was decided between her Uncle Jaiye and Aunt Tala—Tura's sister—that, should anything happen, the former would take over as her legal guardian. That left her fate in his hands alone.  
  
While the adults talked, Rosalie sat quietly and sipped tea—which had long gone cold—now and then. Her face and hands were starting to hurt again, the soothing effect of the medicinal ointment wearing off. The numbness within her hadn't faded, but she was briefly distracted from it by the addition of Ara. Now that she was off and talking to Rosalie's aunt and uncle, out of sight in the hall, the latter felt empty again. Completely aware of her heart beating and of how the fabric of her clothes felt against her skin and other minute things she hardly ever gave thought to. Completely aware that there was a hitch in her throat, a lump so big it threatened to block her airway entirely.  
  
Eventually—in the midst of confusion as to how she should be feeling, if she should be displaying one emotion of another, as opposed to none at all—Ara returned to kneeling, this time closing the distance between them by a foot. Rosalie looked at her, eyes hollow and unassuming.  
  
“Rosalie,” Ara started, “your uncle believes it best that you leave Alderaan, and come to Coruscant with me.”  
  
A flicker of question shone in her eyes. She looked over at Jaiye, truly _feeling_ something for the first time all day: a mixture of confusion and dulled excitement.  
  
Jaiye moved closer. “She, ah—She tested your blood,” he explained, reluctant, “to see if you can train with the Jedi.”  
  
More confusion, the word only sounding vaguely familiar. “What's a Jedi?” she asked quietly.  
  
“We are peacekeepers,” Ara said, drawing Rosalie's gaze back to her. She almost felt sorry that she was moving her eyes so much; they looked terribly tired, though mesmerizing all the same. “Of a type. We work with the Republic; we keep its people safe, and other people, too.” A pause. “We protect.”  
  
Jaiye reeled inside. It was the truth that he thought it would be best for Rosalie to leave, to not walk upon the stains of her family's blood for the rest of her life. Swimming in a sea of memories that wouldn't bring anything but salt for the shadows to rub in her wounds was no way to live. That was true. But the fact remained that by allowing her to go become a member of the Jedi Order, he would be going against Marich's wishes. Neither he nor Tura liked the “monastic Republic busboys” one bit, and even went so far as to deliberately hide their daughter away from them.  
  
But Jaiye had to wonder whether he really had a choice in the end. If what Ara Valaila had told him moments before was true, the option to keep her here was practically nonexistent. Maybe the Jedi wanted him to feel like he still had control, despite all evidence of such a thing having faded the previous night.  
  
“There is something called the Force,” Ara continued. Another flicker of question, and Ara resisted smiling at what distant interest she could detect in Rosalie's sense. “It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, it is within us, it binds and holds the galaxy together. Like glue, if you will.” She would. “But only _some_ people can detect it, feel it, and use it.” She held up the data reader. “And you can; you may have already without even realizing it. And though you're very strong in the Force, Rosalie, there is a chance the Council won't accept you.”  
  
“Why is that?” Hix chimed in, slightly surprising the others; her voice had not been heard in a while.  
  
Ara turned her upper body to face the woman, whose dark eyes were heavy with lack of sleep. “Because a Force-sensitive child above the age of _two_ being accepted into the Order is a rarity. By then, they have formed bonds and affections that would go on to work against them.”  
  
Jaiye swallowed, a bitter taste in his mouth. “Does she really have any bonds _left_?”  
  
Hix's jaw set as she looked at him, blatant surprise furrowing her brows. Rosalie looked up at him, her heart catching as her uncle refused to look at her, his eyes trained on the Jedi instead. It was like she wasn't there, like they were still out in the hall where she couldn't hear. The discomfort and tension thickened to a dark cloud looming over them, and Ara looked back at Rosalie in time to see her eyes fall to the tea. She felt like she had just seen a parent lock their child out of the house for misbehaving. The man was grieving, but in his grief he had effectively severed whatever connection he and his niece may have had with one sentence. _Just get it over with_ , his face had read. _Stop dancing around your pleasantries_ , said his folded arms and square shoulders.  
  
The little voice spoke up again, against Ara's expectations: “How can you tell I can use the . . . Force?” It was hard to speak, her own voice scaring her at how much older and harder it sounded compared to before. It seemed as though her entire syntax had changed overnight with the effects of her erstwhile vocal paralysis, and more so now with the guard she put up against her uncle's newfound severity. Still, her voice was broken and hitched upon the posing of her inquiry.  
  
A small, friendly smile showed on Ara's face as she extended her hand. Slowly, gently, she placed her hand just barely over Rosalie's. She didn't flinch at the Jedi's touch, very different from the hooded man's touch. His was rough and unkind, bloody and _evil_. Ara's was secure and comforting, warmth and light radiating from it and making her feel safe. She meant well, and Rosalie could feel it. By the vague and unexplainable affinity she had for reading emotions, to feel them and detect them, she knew she had nothing to fear by letting her skin touch the other's. Her fear the night before was spiked by how _wrong_ that man's touch was, how unsafe and dangerous it was. Dark. _Dark_ was the word.  
  
Perhaps that was what Ara meant by “the Force.” Maybe what Rosalie had been doing unconsciously all this time was her potential as a Jedi, left undiscovered. The magic of it all made her skull tingle pleasantly, like warm, glittering water trickling over her thoughts.  
  
“I will tell you all about that,” Ara promised, her accent similar to Rosalie's own in the whisper she spoke with. “There will be time enough for any questions you have, and I will answer all of them. But for now, we must go. If you are ready.” She paused before seeming to remember something. “You won't need to pack anything: If you are not accepted, you will come back here; if you _are_ accepted, personal belongings are prohibited to Jedi.”  
  
Rosalie didn't feel anything in response to the frank presentation of one of the rule. She only nodded, and that was enough.  
  
Coruscant. Jemmila. The memory of the talk with her on the balcony was fuzzy, but it rushed back to her in all its brokenness at once. Her heart caught painfully, and the thought of going to the galaxy's capitol in her place stung like a serpent's sharp fangs had bitten into her. A posthumous one-being tribute parade to the fallen artist.  
  
Despite this, the path that had been laid before her couldn't be brushed off. She didn't want to stay on Alderaan, to stay where naught but bad memories and cold tea would be her companions. If she were to come back, rejected, then fine. When she was old enough, she could live someplace else on her own. If she stayed on Coruscant as a Jedi—a lifestyle she had yet to fully understand—then even more so.  
  
She loved her Uncle Jaiye, but couldn't be near him if it meant being near her invaded, sullied home. On her own volition, Rosalie set the ceramic mug on the table before her, getting to her feet. Ara's hold on Rosalie's hand tightened to give the latter support. Immediately, the princess gravitated toward Jaiye and Hix. She wrapped her arms around Hix's waist on still-unsteady knees and wanted to cry, to give both of them some sign that she was feeling. But she couldn't pass the wall of icy rock that had seemed to have built its way up around her.  
  
Upon his wife letting Rosalie go from the embrace, Jaiye requested from the Jedi Knight a more personal goodbye to his niece. Ara put forward no opposition, so Jaiye put an arm around Rosalie's shoulders and led her to what was her bedroom when she would stay over on occasion. All the way, his posture was as stiff and rigid as it had been. Once in the room, he produced an oro wood box from the nightstand beside the bed, clicking open the silver lock, revealing only a small portion of Rosalie's collection of Alderaani wishing stones. Wishing stones were good luck charms, whose different color patterns—everything from those naturally developed, those revealed upon polishing, and those dyed for symbolism—all gave different wishes or lucks, each pattern implying something different, embellishing a variance of hope upon the owner. The light in the room was stark and gray from the closed curtains, but in direct sunlight some of the stones had veins or flecks within them that would glitter and shine depending on how one turned them. “I have something for you to take,” Jaiye said as he knelt his tall frame in front of his niece. He had recovered from his brief outburst, but it still lingered in the lines on his face and darkness underneath his eyes.  
  
“I can't take all of those,” she objected in a whisper, although she wished very hard that she could.  
  
“I know,” he cooed, smoothing out one side of her hair two times over before pulling out three of the stones attached to cords at random—one of orange swirled with burnished gray, another of indigo striped with white, and a third of shimmering cream blotched with black, all three strung through a small hole with a matte braid of black material, thin yet sturdy. “Just take these—for luck.” He smiled for the first time since Rosalie had seen him. Hurriedly, he put the stone pendants in Rosalie's pocket, the long hem of her shirt hiding the bulge they created at her side. With that, he put her in a pair of sable brown cloth boots, buckled at the tops so they would stay snug, and a jacket of a similar yet darker shade.  
  
“Jaiye?”  
  
Jaiye looked into her purple-blue eyes and swallowed the lump forming in his throat. “Yeah, Rosie?”  
  
Rosalie's throat tightened and her eyes watered, but she wrestled the words past: “What happened to Saul?”  
  
Jaiye's eyes flickered to the floor. He breathed deeply, fixing his eyes on a point just above Rosalie's shoulder. “We don't know, honey.” He took a long moment to breathe, placing his hands on Rosalie's shoulders and meeting her eyes once more. The realization that that would be the last time he saw his niece sank into him slowly and painfully. “No one's seen him since yesterday.”  
  
Something small and soft in Rosalie's chest lifted up. “Does that mean he's—. . . okay?”  
  
Jaiye's lips tightened into a thin line. “Don't you worry about him, Rosalie. He'll be all right, I know he will.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead and hugged her tightly against his chest. He could feel her heartbeat, quick like a rabbit's.  
  
Jaiye stood up and led Rosalie back into the living room, and cast her out into the arms of the Twi'lek Jedi, robed in the same tan that she might don someday. Ara Valaila had told Jaiye and Hix what they already knew—what Tura and Marich had told them ten years before. Everyone, at their cores, believed to varying degrees that Rosalie's place was not Alderaan, her parents least of all. Jaiye had come a close second, but hearing the Jedi put into words a prophecy that had long escaped the grasp of his imagination bewildered him in how quickly it changed his thoughts.  
  
“She will be loved with us,” Ara assured the couple earnestly as Rosalie took a place by her side. Jaiye and Hix nodded, linking their arms. There was certainty in her voice that conveyed a lack of doubt in Rosalie returning. As though the mere prospect was moot to begin with. “The Jedi Order is the right place for her.”  
  
“I know,” Jaiye replied under his breath.  
  
The look Rosalie gave him then as she turned to leave was knit-browed in the slightest way. She knew he hurt at seeing her go, and she was sorry for it. Everything was happening so quickly. It was like a blur rushing past her eyes, and she almost forgot the wishing stones stuffed in her pocket, only feeling them again when she walked.  
  
As the sunlight cast a warm glow on her face, orokeets twittering their beautiful songs in the distance, the air smelling of pine and custard bread, Rosalie looked up at Alderaan's snow-capped mountains. She imagined the feeling of rock under her hands and snow between her fingers. She pictured the view of Aldera from a mountaintop, and imagined what the air up high would feel like in her hair.  
  
She wondered if she would ever see Alderaan's mountains again.

  



	4. Contrite

“What did you do to them?” Mykal asked, voice rugged with emotional and physical exhaustion. The floor of the ship's cramped bridge clanked loudly beneath his purposeful footsteps, just a beat out of sync with his master's. His question went ignored, and he grew more distressed. ״Those people, the royals,״ he continued, as though Enric would have no idea who _them_ had been, “what did you do to them? Did you _kill_ them?”  
  
The flurry of inquiries continued to be answered by silence. The boy's master took a seat in the captain's chair, still begrudged against the stray Seeker. Now wouldn't be a good time to settle into a warm chair on Coruscant and think over the events of the evening, he thought. At least not with blood drying to his skin.  
  
״Enric!״ yelled the apprentice, shaking hand locking onto the copilot's chair. White-blue eyes finally tilted upward to look at him, the engines coming to life and sending a shudder through the deck. “You killed those people.”  
  
Enric remained stone-faced on the matter, the simmer of his blood fading as he found enjoyment in the tight cords of panic in Mykal's sense. “It appears that way.”  
  
The Corellian remained horrified as he sank into the matte gray chair, fingers running through his deep brown hair and gripping at the roots. He and his master shared a like thought in the silence that followed: _Why hadn't he seen it coming?_  
  
“Mykal, my _young_ apprentice.” He put weight on the word as if to imply that such youth was the reason for Mykal's shock toward the situation. He shifted his weight in the chair as the engines warmed up, and smiled softly. It was a chilling sight to behold, and an apt rush of cold slithered down the spine of the younger man. Blood still stained his lips from the backsplash. “I don't believe you've taken the opportunity to fully comprehend the gravity of what we do, or perhaps you've simply neglected it. It's a common thing, tossing aside the truth to aid your conscience, to help yourself believe what you're doing isn't bad.”  
  
Mykal was silent for a moment, eyeing Enric with narrow-eyed wonder. His heart continued to beat rapidly, and he repeated the Sith mantra in his head, shutting his eyes and pressing the heel of one hand to his forehead.  
  
_Peace is a lie._  
  
_Peace is a lie._  
  
_Peace is a LIE._  
  
He used the other hand to steady himself as he worked into the copilot's chair. ״Force be good.״ He breathed hard over and over again, quelling a thick ball of nausea in his throat. Finally, Mykal looked up again, this time into the dark night beyond the viewport. He whispered, “Do you even know what you've _done_?” His voice steadily rose, wrought tight with anxiety. “You've killed the royal family of Alderaan! You'll be put to death! There's no way the Senate will sit still for the murder of a senator!”  
  
“I'm insulted,” Enric said, acidic jest laced into his tone. “I won't be caught.”  
  
This, as did many things the Dark Jedi said and did, left Mykal baffled. He swallowed, finding his throat dry, as the ship lifted off. Suddenly, he felt trapped and constricted, like heavy cables were wound around his chest. Space travel always did this to him, gave him a sense of no escape—but traveling with a man covered in drying blood, not seeming to notice it, only worsened the sensation. He was seeing a new side of his master now, one previously hidden out of his sight. Fear and concern spiked his heart rate, and Enric felt it.  
  
“Relax,” he commanded, tone dark, shifting the control yoke gently. “No one will ever know I paid them a visit, much less that _I_ killed them.”  
  
Mykal gawked at him, slate eyes still wide. “ _What?_ ” Before Enric could answer with another unkind quip, he stood up, his knees nearly buckling under his weight. “Never mind. I'm going to rest.”  
  
There was no objection, and Mykal staggered down the hall with one hand on the wall at all times. He stopped in the refresher to be ill, and collapsed onto one elbow in his bunk when he reached it. It seemed like it had been days since he last lay down, and he found his hairline damp with sweat. The taste of bile lingered on his lips, and the scent of blood that had permeated from Enric's clothes remained locked in his nostrils. Stomach continuing to churn and tighten in turns, he rolled onto his back, cupping his face in his hands and shutting his eyes so tightly it hurt. Tears pricked the surface, and guilt sent an icy, sickening bolt through his entire body.  
  
He breathed deeply, smoothing back over and over the layered waves of his hair. Mykal clenched his teeth as he rubbed dampness from around his eyes with force. “I'm sorry,” he whispered. “Forcedamn me, I'm so sorry.” He knew the boy who knocked him to the cobble couldn't hear him, nor could his dead family. His hip still pulsed with soreness from the collision with the stones, and he could still hear the clatter of the blaster, the Seeker boy's panting breaths as he stopped briefly to look at the accessory to his family's murder.  
  
Mykal never wanted this. This wasn't what was _supposed to happen_. How could he be so stupid? So naïve as to think this an adequate way out of his family's suffocating pressure? Enric was supposed to guide him, teach him. Mykal hadn't known where to begin with the Force, neither side of it, other than what he had read in books. _Books. Damn those kriffing books!_  
  
It buzzed around him now, the Force, whispering seeds of darkness in his ear as he lay in despair. Nothing like the tales he had read about, nothing like the parlor tricks he had expected to learn. He was barely sensitive to it, though his training had exposed him to a deeper connection than was thought possible by how few midi-chlorians he had.  
  
Mykal had always been smart as a boy; how could he fall victim to such obvious manipulation?  
  
His rose-colored glasses had been torn off as though they were a support grid keeping the threads of his sanity intact. He felt them snapping apart now, splitting his head in two. He had to leave. Get out. Run in the opposite direction and hide.  
  
For a moment, in the whispers of the shadows that seemed to blanket him, the dark side almost seemed like a soft down cushion, one he wanted desperately to lie down upon. Rest his head, rest his mind, give in. Let the odor of blood become normal and make the tightness around his heart dissipate. But he steeled himself against it, tore his eyelids open in defiance against his deep desire to sleep this horrific night away—perhaps he would awake in his farmhouse bedroom on Corellia, his family chastising him for sleeping late, but still giving him warm breakfast and conversations of everyday nothings.  
  
He craved normalcy and warm sheets. Young, blissful ignorance, the Force remaining a story to read about, accounts detailed on crisp white pages by those who knew naught of what it really was, only by word of imaginative mouths who lived off of embellishment of the truth.  
  
The truth was ugly, a poison that pricked and stung at Mykal's veins as it flowed through his blood, black and tar-thick. No one wrote about the dark side. Only the light. Only the pleasant and the kind and the fantastic. No nightmares save for those that were vanquished by the end—vanquished by the light side of the Force. But not all nightmares could be vanquished by the end of a story, and it appeared that no one had yet lived through a dark-sided tale to put it to page—or perhaps the _real_ nightmares of the dark side were too awful to read about, and so they were embellished with light.  
  
The illusion had been broken, burst through like a sinewy membrane over Mykal's consciousness. He sat up, supporting himself on trembling hands. The cot seemed to swim beneath him, and he worked hard to steady and clear his mind. He closed his eyes again. He breathed, and slowly moved both legs over the side of the cot, gripping the single deep blue blanket that covered it as he did so.  
  
He steeled himself, and stood. At first, he used the wall adjacent to his bunk as support. Having gained his footing, he ventured to stand on his own. The innermost layers of his deep red robes were damp with sweat, sticking uncomfortably to his skin. He licked his lips, tasting his own vomit again but not seeming to notice as he worked his way into the hallway again.  
  
The deck underfoot hummed with the soft, nearly indecipherable rumbles of hyperspace travel. Walking to the bridge, he put up a wall against the whispers. Almost as if wearing earplugs, he didn't let the dark side in any more than it already was. It swam in his heart and mind, turning tissue cancerous, blackening it with the scorches of suffering and anguish. That part, he considered, was his own fault. In giving himself to Enric's teachings, he gave himself to a far deeper sea of danger than he thought. His feet were nearing a trench, pitch black and coiling rotting tendrils around his ankles, and he had to cut himself loose.  
  
“I'm done,” he declared, standing in the cramped doorway. Enric had just been standing up in the low blue glow of hyperspace outside the viewport. He looked all but amused. “Damn this all, I'm finished. This—this has gone too far now.”  
  
Enric stood tall, his posture not faltering under the weight of the soreness in his upper back. The confrontation with the stray Seeker had left him slightly worse for wear. “Has it?” he asked, almost preposterously conversational.  
  
“Yes,” Mykal said back, holding his ground. “I want out. I refuse to reap the rewards of what you've sown. I _refuse_.”  
  
Enric's smirk failed to falter at a single word thrown at him. He wiped in vein at a dried sanguine patch on the right corner of his mouth. Taking a couple of steps forward, he glowered at his apprentice, his gaze cutting through the younger's chest like a shard of frost-coated glass. Still, he stood tall, and for that his master gave him silent credit. “And what, Mykal, do you believe has been done this night? Elaborate for me your perception.”  
  
Mykal paused, taken aback. He blinked, but didn't let himself cower. He knew there was a method to the madness he was witnessing. There always was; tonight was no exception. “No. You tell me of the rewards expected of _murder_. And furthermore, tell me how you expect us to run from the charges. That boy doubtless saw your face, and he's probably already reported you!”  
  
Enric held up his stained hands, a gesture meant to be calming. “If the Seeker boy describes me to authorities, they won't find me, anyway. Nor you. I'll be sure of that. The fruits of my labor will come soon enough, trust me.”  
  
The brunet's eyes narrowed. ״Trust you?״ he asked, shaking his head slightly. ״No one can trust you; you're a murderer!”  
  
“And you're an accessory to murder.” The statement hit Mykal hard. Hearing it vocalized dealt a considerably heavier blow than thinking it. “ _You_ can't be trusted. But I'm afraid we'll have to make do with each other.” The older man walked forward, placing his hands on either slight shoulder in front of him. A nervous tingle resonated throughout Mykal's body, but there was a certain camaraderie present in the contact—the camaraderie he had felt with his master before today. Something about it was comforting, and he was reluctant to let himself acknowledge it. “This blood on my hands, and on yours by extension, is there to serve a greater purpose. A murderer you can call me, but do not think that is all I am by this.”  
  
“And what else are you?” Mykal's voice grew hard and challenging. Enric was many things other than a murderer, but those were called into question in Mykal's mind as the conversation continued.  
  
Enric smiled, a small quirk of one side of his lips, and he made stone-hard eye contact with his apprentice. “I'm a helper. An aide, if you will, in the greater purpose of the galaxy.”  
  
Utterly perplexed, Mykal's brow furrowed. “And that greater purpose is what? The extinction of a dynasty of dignitaries?”  
  
The Dark Jedi laughed, throaty and guttural. ״No.״ He seemed to take the retort in good humor, but his grip on Mykal's shoulders grew tighter. Tighter and tighter until the apprentice began to wince and draw away, and he released the grasp. A wounded look flickered in Mykal's eyes for but a moment until he again hardened his resolve. Enric glided smoothly into the hall outside the hatch leading to the bridge, and pivoted to look at Mykal again. “I am aiding the Chosen One in realizing her true purpose. And, in turn, the Republic will realize theirs, as well.”  
  
Mykal gaped, and his brow shot up in astonishment. He wanted to laugh. “The _Chosen One_? The _deity_ from Jedi lore? The prophecy that never came true?”  
  
“Less of a deity and more of a . . . fountain of potential, I find.” Enric was outright grinning now, making no effort at hiding his self-satisfaction. Gradually, as he watched his acolyte soak in the information he had been given, the grin softened. “Regardless, she's safe now. Well— . . . she _will_ be, soon enough. When the time is right, she will see the right side of things. Her power and her prowess will bring her prophecy true, and all will be set right. Though, of course, the subject matter of her prophecy appears to be rather _subjective_ , given what the Jedi believe . . .” A jest, though not presented as one.  
  
Mykal blinked. This was too much. Too much to take in all at once, to consider without his head spinning. _Force be good_. “I—I still want out. I can't—I can't have any more of this on my conscience.”  
  
Bemused was his master then, nearly laughing. Shortly, however, his expression took a dark turn. “Do you at all remember that you pledged yourself to my teachings? If you do, do you remember what you pledged to my teachings _for_?” Mykal was silent. “Power. Purpose. _Use_.” His expression seemed to soften slightly, as did his tone. “Mykal, by my side you have a purpose in this galaxy, one that you couldn't have hoped to find elsewhere. You know that as well as I do. By my side, you have power. Is that not what you desire?”  
  
Mykal remained silent, jaw set and teeth clenched. He wanted to avert his gaze, give his eyes rest, but he stood his ground in a manner of defiance against the words that rang all too true. Everything he had in life had been given to him until he had the chance to make something. Have a craft, build, call something his own and mean it. Enric Kelrian had presented that opportunity, fit with the tempting sweetness of the magic of childhood stories and alluring mystery that was synonymous with the Force. He could levitate objects with an outward stretch of his hand, sense emotions and events with a simple reach of his mind, and could complete physical feats he could have never dreamed of doing before. All this, and only three years of tutelage under his belt. More, and he couldn't have told what he could do.  
  
But now, it seemed that his life wasn't his own at all. He had knelt before Enric that day in pledge to what he could teach him, in promise to stand by his side. He had broken promises and commitments before, but none so sacred as the bond between master and apprentice.  
  
A twisted kind of morality sunk in, settled in his stomach and made him feel heavy. The dark side continued to whisper, growing louder and harder to ignore. The dark side was _screaming_ at him to do the right thing—the right thing as far as the _it_ was concerned. The light may have had a different idea, but what, in the end, could Mykal do? Enric offered him what he desired, and had more than enough power to kill him and find another protégé to teach what he had learned if he turned away now. After all, how could Enric be certain Mykal wouldn't report him himself?  
  
In the depths of hyperspace, there was nowhere to run. Even if he waited until their return to Coruscant—if that was at all where Enric had directed the autopilot to; Mykal hadn't been in the bridge long enough to see—there would still be hell to pay. He could run off to his family, but they would only suffer for it.  
  
Sickness prodded at Mykal's stomach, the atrocities of tonight creeping back into his train of thought. Had the Chosen One been a Ta'Shi? If so, was she still in the palace, her dead family members all around her? The thought made his head swim. “Fine,” he blurted at length, more or less for the sake of noise to break his thoughts. His eyes had drifted closed, and he now snapped them back open to meet the pale blue shades that continued to burn through him. “Fine. I'll stay.” His voice was meek, like a child's.  
  
Enric seemed indifferent, but nodded as though to say he was pleased with the choice. “Good. You'll be packing what you need when we return to Coruscant. I'm afraid we can no longer stay there.”  
  
That caught Mykal's attention. “Why?”  
  
Shifty were Kelrian's eyes now, and he started down the hall. “Coruscant is the center of the galaxy; attention will only serve us ill. Don't you suppose?”  
  
He disappeared down the ship's corridor, and Mykal moved to sink into the copilot's chair. He rested his elbows on his knees, cupping unsteady hands over his face. _Of course. That_ was how they would avoid conviction: going into hiding. He wondered how he hadn't come to the conclusion on his own. The escapee prince had seen both of their distinct appearances; it would be almost too easy to identify them in a crowd.  
  
He leaned back in the chair, staring out into the shifting blue of hyperspace, his fingers gripping at the roots of his hair.  
  
_The Force shall free me._  
  
_The Force shall free me._  
  
_The Force shall free me._  
  
As the galaxy's city-planet capital grew closer by the minute, Mykal could feel himself sinking into the trench, tendrils coiled around him, each breath drawing him deeper. He was anything but free.


End file.
